12/28/2011

As a celebration of achieving 200 followers over at the Kidliterate Facebook page (have you liked it? it's the easiest way to keep up on when I post here, plus I post links I think are awesome and other little tidbits), I am doing some shelf-clearing and sharing the book love with all of you. This will be the first of a few posts, so check back in the coming days for more! I'll pick all the winners on January 2nd.

Over at Facebook, you enter by commenting on each entry individually. (If you entered there, you do not need to enter here as well.) Here, simply comment on this blog post and tell me which parts you are interested in winning. (If it's all of them, just say all!) I'd also love to know your favorite book or books from this year, but that's just because I'm nosy - it's not a requirement. Anyone can win anything!

How I'll pick the winners: everyone will be assigned a number, starting with the Facebook entrants and going down from there. I'll use the handy random number generator to pick the winner of each item and mail them out sometime in the New Year.

Get extra entries for your desired books by: posting a link to this post on your blog; retweeting the tweet I will send after this is posted (I'm @mposten); posting it on your FB page. If you link to this post, please let me know in a comment!

And now, the initial list, with book descriptions I took from Ingram's website (thank you, Ingram!):

1. two awesome picture books! KING HUGO'S HUGE EGO, the latest stroke of brilliance from the awesome Chris Van Dusen; plus MOUSE AND LION, and gorgeous new retelling of the Aesop fable by Rand Burkert, with art by Nancy Ekholm Burkert!

2.SHINE by Lauren Myracle, the riveting YA novel that was the centerpiece of the biggest debacle the National Book Award has ever known. "When her best guy friend falls victim to a vicious hate crime, 16-year-old Cat sets out to discover who in her small Southern town did it. Richly atmospheric, this daring mystery examines the strength of will it takes to go against everyone in the name of justice."

3. WILDWOOD, the debut middle-grade fantasy novel by Decemberists lead singer Colin Meloy, with beautiful art by his wife, Carson Ellis. "After her baby brother is kidnapped by crows, seventh-grader Prue McKeel ventures into the forbidden Impassable Wilderness--a dangerous and magical forest in the middle of Portland, Oregon--and soon finds herself involved in a war among the various inhabitants."

4. an advance copy of GRAVE MERCY, book 1 of the HIS FAIR ASSASSIN series by Robin LaFevers (4/12, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). "Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes a brutal arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of assassins--for a price. Packed with love, magic, and deadly games of courtly intrigue and treason, book one of a fast-paced trilogy set in 15th-century France combines romance with captivating action." (The ARC cover is not the pretty pretty you see here, BTW.)

5. Two terrific SIGNED middle-grade novels: LUV YA BUNCHES by Lauren Myracle ("The first book in a four-part series, "Luv Ya Bunches" is a funny, honest middle-grade novel about four friends navigating the ups and downs of fifth grade.") and Newbery Honor/National Book Award finalist/Coretta Scott King winner ONE CRAZY SUMMER by Rita Williams-Garcia (""One Crazy Summer" tells the story of three girls who go to Oakland, California, to meet their estranged mother and become involved in the civil rights movement in the late 1960s.").

ONE CRAZY SUMMER is actually signed "to Molly," because I accidentally got two copies for my daughter - but hey, it's signed!

6. Three YA dystopian novels!

THOSE THAT WAKE by Jesse Karp: "On the same day Mal learns his brother has disappeared, Laura discovers her parents have forgotten her. Both begin a search for their families that leads them to the same truth: someone or something has wiped the teens from the memories of every person they have ever known."

POSSESSION by Elana Johnson: "In a world where Thinkers control the population and Rules are not meant to be broken, 15-year-old Violet Schoenfeld must make a choice to control or be controlled after learning truths about her "dead" sister and "missing" father."

AWAKEN by Katie Kacvinsky: "Maddie lives in a world where everything is done on the computer. Whether it's to go to school or on a date, people don't venture out of their home. For the most part, Maddie's okay with the solitary, digital life--until she meets Justin."

Again, simply comment by saying something like "I'd love 1, 4, and 5, please! And my favorite book of the year was OKAY FOR NOW by Gary Schmidt." And may the odds be ever in your favor!

12/19/2011

I am firmly, devotedly a reader and lover of printed books, and Molly seems to be following right along. Not that she doesn't love the computer and my iPhone and TV - she totally does - but she LOVES printed books. However she also loves audiobooks, and has started to develop a taste for some of the ones available for the iPhone that read the book to you while moving through a series of pictures. That of course has led to our downloading some book-related apps--and because she is also a hardcore FANCY NANCY fan (what pink-loving girl isn't?), when I saw the FANCY NANCY DRESS UP app in the App Store, I knew I had to download it for her.

It's a TON of fun for 99 cents!

You start out with Nancy's wardrobe (which you can see in the screenshot). When you click on an item of clothing or accessory, you are taken to several choices in that category. Click on the specific item that you want, and ding! It's on Nancy. The more outrageously you dress her, the more she urges you on. You can really pile the stuff on and make her look ridiculous. Molly thinks this is HILARIOUS.

(You can also touch a little palette icon and ding! Nancy is dressed fancily for you - but it's much more fun to do it yourself.)

Then you can place Nancy into one of many different backgrounds. And here's Molly's favorite part: there are all these "stickers" (little things like apples and puppies and room decor) that you can move onto the various backgrounds so you can decorate with them. She likes to absolutely cover the screen with these stickers, which is no small surprise as she also likes to cover our house with her cra--er, treasures.

THEN you can save your pages, and insert them into a little interactive storybook.

HarperCollins has done an amazing job with the Fancy Nancy licensing. As far as I can tell, there isn't any...well, garbage. Games and puzzles; dolls and costumes; and all from the best companies. Molly would love a Fancy Nancy TV show, and if done well (Charlie and Lola is the gold standard for me) I think it could be really wonderful. I hate the overmerchandising of certain characters but Nancy has been rolled out slowly and so well. This app is just the latest in a long string of terrific, thoughtful decisions, and I think it's one of my favorites to date. And Molly - the target audience - would absolutely agree.

12/18/2011

It was a GOOD year for picture books. So I'm going to whiz through this general rec list quickly, with very short descriptions, so this post isn't any more insanely long that it's going to be. I've also added in one that I keep talking about, and still no one seems to know it. I'm also assuming that by now you have heard of I WANT MY HAT BACK by Jon Klassen; if not, you want to look for that, too. (I am firmly Team Bear.)

And a reminder: the links go to my local indie, Left Bank Books; any affiliate $$ I earn will be turned around into buying books for the St. Louis Public Schools.

1. KING HUGO'S HUGE EGO by my not remotely secret imaginary illustrator boyfriend, Chris Van Dusen: Hopefully you have been listening to me talk about Chris Van Dusen for years now, so you already have If I Built A Car and The Circus Ship and Down to the Sea With Mr. Magee and A Camping Spree With Mr. Magee and Learning to Ski With Mr. Magee and all the Mercy Watson books. Perfect! It's time for Hugo. King Hugo has a huge ego, and cannot stop himself from saying unbelievably egotistical things to everyone he meets. However, he ticks off the wrong subject--a local witch--and soon he finds his head literally growing bigger with every conceited word he utters. Will he stop himself in time?

2. CHICKEN BIG by Keith Graves: I love daft animals in picture books, and CHICKEN BIG features some incredibly daft chickens. This is a twist on Chicken Little, but much awesomer, and the littlest chicken in particular is a hoot.

3. PRESS HERE by Herve Tullet: One of the most brilliant participatory picture books of all time. You begin by having your child press the yellow dot on the page, and with each subsequent turn, amazing things happen. You can start this one with your little picture book fans, but even older ones will get a kick out of it.

4. ARE YOU A HORSE? by Andy Rash--this is the one no one seems to know, and I don't know why. Roy's friends give him a saddle for his birthday, and it's marked "1. Find a horse. 2. Enjoy the ride." Roy embarks on a journey to discover what a horse is, to hilarious effect. I handsold this like mad. I still giggle during this book.

5. THE BOY WHO CRIED NINJA by Alex Latimer: "Once there was a boy named Tim who no one believed. When his mom asked him what happened to the last slice of cake, he told her the truth. "It was a ninja," cried Tim. Of course Tim's parents don't believe him--but what happens when Tim proves them wrong? So. Awesome. Was definitely my handsell of the early fall.

6. E-MERGENCY by Tom Lichtenheld and Ezra Fields-Meyer: When E slips down the stairs and ends up in the hospital, the other letters are forced to find a substitute for her - the letter O. Can you imagine if a car went BOOP BOOP? LOVE. Sort of like an Ella Minnow Pea for picture book fans.

7. I NEED MY MONSTER by Amanda Noll; art by Howard McWilliam: Ethan's under-the-bed monster Gabe goes fishing, so Ethan's forced to interview substitute monsters so he can fall asleep. This one turns the monsters-under-the-bed-being-scary myth on its head, and it becomes instead a hilarious exploration of why one monster after another just isn't what Ethan needs. Thankfully Gabe comes back at the end (the fish were too scared of him) in time to send Ethan off to sleep in an ominous pool of drool.

8. YOU WILL BE MY FRIEND! by Peter Brown: You WILL love this book! In this companion to last year's awesome CHILDREN MAKE TERRIBLE PETS, our heroine, Lucille Beatrice Bear, goes off into the forest to force people to be her--er, make a new friend. She just isn't very good at it. Fortunately, just in time, she gets some excellent help.

9. TOM'S TWEET by Jill Esbaum; art by Dan Santat: Hungry Tom spies a tiny bird, flapping and struggling, just ripe for the eating. However, every time he tries to eat the tweet, he ends up helping it instead. This one just came out in November and hasn't seemed to "hit" yet, so you can get in on the ground floor! I don't like cats at all (and I usually don't like cat books, either) and I LOVE THIS BOOK.

10. STUCK by Oliver Jeffers: Floyd's kite gets stuck in a tree, so he throws his shoe up to try to knock it loose. Now his shoe's stuck. He'll have to throw something else. Where will it end? This one builds ridiculously bigger and bigger and kids will have so much fun trying to guess what Floyd will throw up there next.

11. THE SNIFFLES FOR BEAR by Bonny Becker; art by Kady MacDonald Denton: Hopefully you already know Bear and Mouse from A VISITOR FOR BEAR and A BEDTIME FOR BEAR and the reader A BIRTHDAY FOR BEAR. I think this one's just as delightful as the others, as we see Bear being a very sulky unhappy patient as Mouse tries to nurse him through a cold with his usual unflappable cheerfulness. (The best part is when Bear starts going over his will.)

12. THE MAN IN THE MOON by William Joyce: This is the picture book you can give anyone - child; artist; steampunk fan (they'll totally dig the art) - the audience for this one is huge, and this book is going to be around for a long, long time. It tells the story of MiM, the Man in the Moon, and his friend Nightlight, who help to protect the children of the world from Pitch, the King of Nightmares. Together with several other childhood legends MiM becomes one of the Guardians of Childhood. It is impossible to explain to you how much I love this book. In fact, when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch asked me to pick my five favorite children's books of the year, this was the picture book I chose.

12/07/2011

Okay, maybe the post title's a little out of control. I'm guessing you need no explanation for this topic. I'll just get to it, shall I? You will also notice the reviews are much shorter, as I am starting to run out of time. (I'm guessing your kid already has IF I BUILT A CAR by Chris Van Dusen, because you'd have to be in a coma to not understand how nutso I am for Chris Van Dusen, so I'm not even going to mention it here. Much.)

3. CARS GALORE by Peter Stein (with art by Bob Staake, who I LOVE): A rhyming, traffic-filled celebration of every kind of real and made-up car your little car fanatic can possibly come up with.

4. EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND by Brian Biggs: This crazy awesome book is about a little boy and his dad and their vehicle-filled trip to the big city. Every picture is jam-packed with people and vehicles and animals and numbers and other stuff - there is stuff to look at everywhere, some in close-up. It's like WHERE'S WALDO meets CARS AND TRUCKS AND THINGS THAT GO, on steroids.

5. OTIS AND THE TORNADO by Loren Long: the sequel to my much-beloved OTIS (which I KNOW you already have, right? RIGHT?) finds our sunny little tractor saving his farm friends when a tornado comes out of nowhere.

6. DINOTRUX by Chris Gall: Before dinosaurs roamed the Earth, prehistoric trucks did. (Really! You never learned this in school?) Learn all about things like the Dumplodocus. This book is like crack for truck-and-dinosaur loving kids. Give it to them as a pair with DINOSAUR DIG and watch their little heads explode.

7. THE THREE LITTLE ALIENS AND THE BIG BAD ROBOT by Margaret McNamara: The three little aliens' mom tells them to go out and make their way in the world, which they do - being mindful that they need to watch out for the Big Bad Robot. They go from planet to planet (one is too hot; one too crowded) before setting up homes and preparing to face off with the BBR. The art in this fun retelling is awesome, too.

8. ALONG A LONG ROAD by Frank Viva: In this, the quietest of the books I've chosen by far, a man sets out on a bicycle trip along a long road through many different landscapes. The minimal words and striking, five-color illustrations lend themselves to a reader imagining for themselves many of the stories that might happen along that road.

12/02/2011

Middle-grade fantasy: my bread and butter. Possibly my number one favorite category of all time. I cannot get enough of it. I never get tired of it. And boy, this was a great year for it. As usual, I'll mix in some (possibly) lesser-known favorites and make sure to get a couple of paperbacks in. And for the most part, I think these make great read-alouds - but remember with fantasy you can get some scary stuff. None of these books has anything worse than Harry Potter, though, so if your reader is okay with Harry, they'll be okay with these.

1. THE EMERALD ATLAS by John Stephens: Hands down the best new fantasy of the year. Possibly the best new fantasy since Harry Potter. If your kid hasn't heard of this series yet, it's only because this is book one and it's only been out eight months. Kate, Michael and Emma have been passed from one orphanage to another, and everyone believes their parents are dead. At their latest orphanage, they accidentally discover a magical atlas - when you place a photograph inside its pages, the atlas takes you back in time to the moment the picture was taken. They are whisked into a past when the local town was run by a witch who is looking for that very same atlas. Will they be able to keep it hidden, get back to their own time, save the world - and possibly learn the truth about who they are and what happened to their family? I haven't mentioned this book in awhile because I think people actually got tired of hearing me talk about it. LOVE.

2. THE CLOCKWORK THREE by Matthew Kirby: Hugo Cabret meets The Thief Lord. Three children - a violin-playing orphan busker; an apprentice clockmaker; and a hotel maid with a very ill father - find their paths crossing time and again as each searches for one thing that will change their life forever. This was has a complex, twisting plot, and too long of a description gives too much away. Kirby's latest, ICEFALL, is also awesome - though totally different - it's a Norse folklore-inspired fantasy-tinged coming of age story, and I loved it too.

3. THE BOOK OF THREE by Lloyd Alexander: I have loved this series for over three decades, and I never get tired of re-reading it. I wish they would re-jacket them, but oh, the insides. Taran is an orphan and Assistant Pig-Keeper for Dallben the wizard's oracular pig, Hen Wen. Taran longs for adventure and when Hen Wen escapes her enclosure and he runs after her, he runs right into some. First he meets Prince Gwydion and then the enchantress Achren, who captures them both and takes them to the castle of the Horned King. Taran manages to escape with the help of a princess and a bard, both of whom will become prominent characters in the four following books, and when Gwydion is believed dead, it will fall to Taran to defend Prydain from the Horned King. This series is based on Welsh mythology. For me, this is one of the greatest fantasy series of all time. Alexander built a complex world that builds with each subsequent book, and the characters show true growth throughout the course of the story. I actually think I need to re-read it; just talking about it makes me want to.

4. BREADCRUMBS by Anne Ursu: Quietly, stunningly beautiful--this book just swept me off my feet. It's based on my favorite Andersen fairy tale, The Snow Queen. Hazel and Jack, 11 year old best friends, are being pulled apart by many things - problems at home; parental suggestion; peer pressure. It's a troubled time, right on the edge of puberty, and Hazel's confused and hurt - but when Jack's stolen away to the woods by a mysterious witch, there's no question that Hazel will go after him. The journey she embarks on is fraught with danger and loneliness and lessons to learn and bits of other Andersen fairy tales, and is woven together expertly. Give this one as part of a pair with A TALE DARK AND GRIMM, which I discuss below.

5. FLOORS by Patrick Carman: Leo lives at the Whippet Hotel, where his dad is the maintenance man, and things are a bit crazy - there are hidden rooms, secret staircases, and ducks living on the roof. One day Leo receives a box from Mr. Whippet, the missing owner of the hotel. The box starts him off on a wild chase through the hotel, finding clue after clue (and more crazy rooms than he ever knew existed), in order to ultimately save the hotel from nefarious people who want to buy it. This one's perfect for absolutely any kid - I NEVER had a failed handsell on it - but especially for fans of CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY or Jody Feldman's THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES. Sequels are coming!

6. PETER NIMBLE AND HIS FANTASTIC EYES by Jonathan Auxier: Sometimes when I really love a book I get bogged down in the handsell, and my description makes the book sound...not good. This is one of those books, so I'm going to cut and paste the jacket description, which sums up the plot WAY better than I do. I was on the ABA New Voices Committee that honored this book earlier this year, and it SO deserved it. Jonathan really is a voice to watch. And the plot: This is the utterly beguiling tale of a ten-year-old blind orphan who has been schooled in a life of thievery.One fateful afternoon, he steals a box from a mysterious traveling haberdasher--a box that contains three pairs of magical eyes. When he tries the first pair, he is instantly transported to a hidden island where he is presented with a special quest: to travel to the dangerous Vanished Kingdom and rescue a people in need. Along with his loyal sidekick--a knight who has been turned into an unfortunate combination of horse and cat--and the magic eyes, he embarks on an unforgettable, swashbuckling adventure to discover his true destiny.

7. THE SIXTY-EIGHT ROOMS by Marianne Malone: I reviewed this one in ARC form, back in 2009. It's out in paperback now, and I love it just as much - especially as I finally got to see the Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago last month!

8. SAVVY by Ingrid Law: I sold this book for years, but never actually read it until about four months ago. (Actually, I listened to it on audiobook; it was a superb audiobook.) Mibs Beaumont is about to turn thirteen, and when a Beaumont turns thirteen, they get their Savvy. One of her brothers channels electricity and the other causes hurricanes, so she's expecting something really powerful - which she'll need if she's going to save her father, who's been in a horrible accident many miles away. Mibs - along with her brother and the preacher's children - stows away on a bus in order to get to her father in time, and what happens to them along the way will change everyone involved forever.

9. A TALE DARK AND GRIMM by Adam Gidwitz: this book is a masterclass on story structure - a brilliant fairy tale retelling that begins as Hansel and Gretel and grows into so much more. The narrator talks to you throughout (I love when they break the fourth wall) and it does get quite creepy and gory in places, just like real fairy tales do. I cannot even tell you how much I am dying for Adam's next book to come out. Give this one as part of a pair, with BREADCRUMBS.

10. MIDDLEWORLD by J & P Voelkel: Great for fans of Percy Jackson! Max's parents are Mayan archaeologists, and when they disappear while on a dig, Max finds himself in Central America on a dangerous quest to find them. Along the way he will encounter Mayan Gods and more danger than he ever found in the video games that used to keep him company. Max is a total whiner at first, lazy and soft, but a Mayan girl soon kicks his butt into gear. LOVE this series.

11. EVERLOST by Neal Shusterman: I just met Neal at NCTE and told him, and I quote, "I sold the crap out of your books." Except I didn't say crap. He cracked up, but it was totally true. Neal is one of my favorites, ever. Most of his books are YA - and technically this is too - but I don't think it's scarier than Harry Potter, which is what I measure things against for parents. I'm going to cop out on this one, because the starred review from School Library Journal says it better than I ever could: "Nick and Allie are killed in an automobile accident and meet as they are heading down a tunnel toward the light. They land in Everlost, the space between the living and the end of the tunnel, and meet Lief, from whom they learn that Afterlights cannot walk where the living walk and that they cannot be seen or heard by the living. Allie is determined to go home, so she and Nick set out from the accident site in upstate New York and the safety of Lief's forest for New Jersey. Even though they have been warned about the McGill, a dreaded, evil monster, they slowly make their way, eventually arriving in New York City. There they meet Mary Hightower, who cares for Afterlights in the destroyed World Trade Towers, keeping them safe from the McGill and the Haunter. (In addition to children, buildings and objects can also cross into Everlost if they were much loved.) In their ensuing adventures, they are captured by the McGill and suffer a horrible fate before Nick discovers his true purpose in Everlost. Shusterman has created a world in which nothing is as it seems. As the teens struggle to make sense of this alternate afterlife, they also grow and develop as people. They learn to question those who have put themselves in power, and they begin to see what is truly important. Shusterman has reimagined what happens after death and questions power and the meaning of charity. While all this is going on, he has also managed to write a rip-roaring adventure complete with monsters, blimps, and high-diving horses." Book 1 of 3.

12. ALIENS ON VACATION by Clete Barrett Smith: Scrub is annoyed to be packed off to spend the summer with his grandmother - until he learns that her bed & breakfast is actually a vacation spot for aliens. While his grandmother disguises them and helps them blend in for an exotic Earth vacation, Scrub gets into one hairy situation after another. I don't often LOL while reading, but I did it many, many times while reading this. And everyone on the New Voices committee liked it just as much as I did! This was another handsell that pretty much never failed.

If I don't stop here I never will, but let me tell you - this list could be three times as long.

11/30/2011

I changed the title of this entry. There are plenty of boys who like pink, ballet, and fairy tales. What was the matter with me?

My 5-year-old daughter Molly is obsessed with pink. Her walls are pink. She gets upset (VERY UPSET) if the day's outfit does not contain pink, and it's better for all concerned if it contains a LOT of pink. She is a living Pinkalicious. I know she will grow out of this; someday she will be a goth-y, moody teenager who will want to paint her bedroom black, and I will look back on these pink days wistfully. And to tell the truth, I don't mind it. She likes pink. What am I going to do? Give her an extended lecture on gender politics?

We do like variety in our books, though, and I prefer that the pink books have something girl-powery about them. I'm not saying that we don't read some Disney Princess books. But we have to alternate those with better books, if only for the sanity of the three adults in the house. So these books are all currently parent and Molly approved.

1. TALLULAH'S TUTU by Marilyn Singer: Tallulah believes that at the end of her first ballet lesson, she will receive a tutu. All ballerinas have tutus! When she learns that it takes a lot of hard work to earn your tutu, she refuses to continue lessons. But when the world conspires to put ballet everywhere she looks, Tallulah realizes that it's more a part of her than she knew. My ballerina was nuts about this one from the moment I first opened the cover.

2. THE PRINCESS KNIGHT by Cornelia Funke: The king lets his daughter, Violet, learn swordplay and horseback riding with her older brothers - but when she turns sixteen, he decides to hold a tournament. To choose her husband. Violet decides to take matters into her own hands by disguising herself as a boy and entering the tournament herself. I have been loving and recommending this book for years.

3. I HAD A FAVORITE DRESS by Boni Ashburn: I am crazy about this sweet, slightly melancholic story. When a young girl outgrows her favorite dress, her mother turns it into a shirt. When that grows too small, it becomes a tank top...and then a skirt...socks...and finally a hair bow. Molly hasn't done this yet with a favorite piece of clothing, but I'm sure she will before too long.

4. THE QUEEN OF FRANCE by Tim Wadham: I had the pleasure of hosting the launch party for this book back in March, and I'm just as happy to recommend it today as I was then. Rose wakes up feeling royal, and soon enough, the Queen of France imperiously presents herself to Rose's mother. However, when Rose comes to find the Queen of France a little later, the Queen has disappeared. When the Queen comes back and proposes that she switch places with Rose, the parents talk about how much they would miss Rose. The ending sets up a sequel (I hope) quite nicely. We have read this time and again and I never get tired of it.

5. THE PRINCESSES HAVE A BALL by Teresa Bateman: No one has ever heard of this awesome multicultural retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. The king wonders where his daughters disappear to every night, and how they are constantly wearing out their dancing slippers. When the cobbler follows them, he learns that they are...playing basketball! They convince their father to let them throw their own ball, and play a lively game for the court.

6. MISS LINA'S BALLERINAS (and sequel!) by Grace Maccarone: This one's super fun to read aloud, because Miss Lina's perfect eight ballerinas are named Christina, Edwina, Sabrina, Justina, Katrina, Bettina, Marina, and Nina. But one day Regina shows up and throws off the balance, and they have to figure out how to adjust their steps.

7. PRINCESSES ARE NOT QUITTERS by Kate Lum: This is another one that seemed to fly totally under the radar. Three totally bored princesses decide that their servants are having more fun outside, doing things - so they decide to switch places for the day. They quickly find out that the work is hard and exhausting, but stick to it. In the morning, they take pride in what they did (eating the bread they baked, etc) and make up some new rules for the palace meant to lighten the workers' loads and ensure that everyone has some peaceful time to play.

8. BETTY BUNNY LOVES CHOCOLATE CAKE by Michael Kaplan: After Betty Bunny tastes chocolate cake for the first time, she decides that she is going to marry it - and that she doesn't want to eat anything else. When she throws a tantrum over the cake, her mother decides to teach her a lesson in patience. This bunny IS my daughter, and I suspect some of yours as well, and you will find much that is familiar in these pages. Betty's siblings are also kind of hilarious.

9. BELINDA THE BALLERINA (and sequels) by Amy Young: There are four books about Belinda, and we love them all to pieces. Belinda has gigantic feet, and despite being an incredibly talented dancer, is basically laughed out of an audition. She gives up dancing forever and takes a job in a restaurant. But her love of dance won't disappear, and one night, the Maestro of the Grand Metropolitan Ballet is eating in the restaurant and sees her dance. Belinda's dream quickly comes true. Subsequent stories find her in Paris and then dancing the part of Cinderella, and one of our favorites takes us back to Belinda as a little girl.

10. THE SECRET KEEPER by Kate Coombs: Yet another book that cause people to look at me blankly. This one feels like an old fairy tale, but isn't. Kalli is the Secret Keeper of the village of Maldinga, and the villagers come to her and leave her with their most dreadful secrets. She locks them away in tiny drawers in her cottage. The secrets become too much for her to bear and she becomes ill. The villagers decide then to share happier secrets with her as well - including Taln, the potter's son, who has the happiest secret of all. This is a book I actually hug every time I take it down from the shelf, I love it so much.

11. THE DUCHESS OF WHIMSY by Randall de Seve: This is the utterly charming tale of the Duchess of Whimsy, who is fancy and wild and fabulous, and her totally ordinary husband, the Earl of Norm, who is not. The Duchess throws a dinner party, and when the chef becomes sick, her friends go nuts making the most extremely crazily elaborate food possible. The Earl's just hungry, though, and wanders off to make himself a grilled cheese. What happens when the Duchess follows?

12. WHILE MAMA HAD A QUICK LITTLE CHAT by Amy Reichert: This one's a bit of a wry lesson for those of us who love our smartphones. It's Rose's bedtime, but Uncle Fred calls, and Mama just needs to have a quick little chat. But the doorbell rings, and when Rose opens it, she finds men with party supplies. She tries to get Mama, but Mama just needs a minute! The doorbell keeps ringing and ringing and soon enough there's a huge party going on, and Rose's Mama just won't get off the phone. What is Rose to do? This book introduced me to the art of Alexandra Boiger, who also illustrated Tallulah's Tutu!

I have to stop here or I will never stop. If I've forgotten your favorite, it's entirely possible I've forgotten one of mine - post what you think I've overlooked and I'll do a catchup post in the weeks to come!

11/29/2011

I admit it; I'm doing the easiest one first! Because with this category, it's simply a matter of narrowing down to the best of the new and throwing in some of my old favorites. If you are buying for a younger kid who's reading way up and want to know if there's any older content in any of the titles, just leave me a comment.

Also, with these holiday gift guides (and going forward), this blog has become an affiliate of my neighborhood indie bookstore, Left Bank Books. They ship pretty much everywhere. I can walk there from my house! If you click on a "buy" link from here, a teeny portion of what you buy will come back to me. I in turn will take that money and purchase kids' books and donate them to St. Louis city school libraries. It will be totally transparent; I will tell you how much I have received, what I bought with it and where it went!

Note: this list presupposes that your gift recipient has already read THE HUNGER GAMES, Robin McKinley, GRACELING, MISTWOOD, Cassandra Clare, and DIVERGENT. If they haven't, put all of those titles (and Robin's and Cassie's entire oeuvre) on your thinking-about list. Comment if you want specifics on Clare or on McKinley, my favorite writer of all time.

2. DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor - Not only does it sport one of my favorite covers of the year, but it's also the story of seventeen-year-old Karou, an art student in a Prague boarding school, who carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters--the "family" that raised her. Her father sends her on dangerous missions across the world, collecting teeth for an unknown purpose. Strange black handprints begin to show up on the doors between our world and theirs, and then one day a chance encounter with an angel brings both of Karou's worlds crashing down around her. (And the end is a KILLER.)

3. THE NAME OF THE STAR by Maureen Johnson: This one is definitely for the Doctor Who fans on your list in particular. Maureen's latest brings us Rory, a Louisiana teen who's spending the year at a London boarding school. And just her luck - the day she arrives, a serial killer begins a series of Jack the Ripper copycat murders across the city. After a body is discovered on school grounds, Rory is pretty sure she's seen the killer - but why did no one else see him? I LOVE this book. Creepy and mysterious and a little funny with a dash of romance.

4. SISTERS RED by Jackson Pearce: I love this incredibly dark Red Riding Hood retelling. Scarlett defended her sister Rosie during the wolf attack that killed their grandmother, but was seriously maimed in the attack - both physically and emotionally. Now Scarlett and Rosie hunt the wolves, protecting the young girls that the wolves seek to lure in and kill. Rosie's getting older, though, and has begun to dream of a different life. Can she have it and still remain loyal to the broken sister who saved her life?

5. SORCERY & CECELIA, or THE ENCHANTED CHOCOLATE POT by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer: I love to haul out an oldie but goodie like this one, book one of a series that began in 2003. It's an epistolary Regency fantasy. (Yes, you read that correctly.) I love epistolary novels, Regency romances and fantasy, so you can imagine that when this came out I DEVOURED it. It takes place in an alternate, enchanted England, and our two protagonists are cousins: Kate, who's in London for the Season, and Cecilia, who's not allowed to go and has been left behind in the country. They keep up with one another through letters, and when Kate's nearly poisoned by a mysterious old woman and Cecilia meets a girl who she believes is enchanting young men to fall in love with her, their stories start sliding together. This is a romp of a fantasy, told with a wry sense of humor, in two distinct and charming voices.

6.GIRL OF FIRE AND THORNS by Rae Carson: This is the book for your GRACELING and MISTWOOD fans. Once every hundred years someone is born with the Godstone embedded in their navel, and that person is destined to perform a great duty in their lifetime. Elisa is the chosen one, but has been overshadowed her whole life by her older sister and feels useless and adrift as a result. She comforts herself with food and is overweight as a result (what? a real girl?) and hopes to marry someone ugly - but instead ends up married to a mysterious foreign prince, for reasons no one will tell her. Early in her marriage she is kidnapped, and as a result is forced to grow up quickly - to take charge of her life and become the person she was chosen and destined to be. The book started slowly for me and I really didn't like Elisa at all at first, but stick with it - the writing gets stronger and stronger as the book goes on (as does Elisa), and I think Rae Carson is a writer to watch.

7.PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White: This one's good for Buffy fans. Evie's 16 and lives at the International Paranormal Containment Agency. Because she has the rare power to see through magical glamours, she helps the Agency capture rogue fantastical creatures and keep the world safe from harm - with the help of her pink taser. In her spare time, though, she's fending off obsessive advances from a nefarious fairy; obsessing over clothes and television shows; befriending a mermaid; and falling for the mysterious new guy who's some sort of magical creature...but no one can figure out exactly what. This one's a lot of fun but also has a ton of thrilling moments, and (despite looking like a bitchy Barbie on the cover) a heroine that you wish you could be friends with.

If I've forgotten your favorite, it's entirely possible I've forgotten one of mine - post what you think I've overlooked and I'll do a catchup post in the weeks to come!

11/27/2011

I have typed and erased, typed and erased the first sentence of this review no fewer than five times. I do not really know how to tell you about this book. I feel like I have been living inside of it since I closed the pages on the first reading. I have now read it twice and am listening to it on audio, and I am quite sure that before the year closes I will have read through the physical book again. I have been a fan of Maggie's for awhile now, and loved the Wolves of Mercy Falls series a lot, but this book is different.

This book is exquisite. This book is magic. This book has moved me in ways that I think I haven't been moved since I first opened a Robin McKinley book. This book is now on my top ten YA of all time list. (Yes, I will write that entry.) This book is not for everyone, and some may dismiss it as being "too horsey," although I think those people may not have been looking deeply enough. To look at THE SCORPIO RACES and see only a book about horses is to miss...so much.

I do not want to spoil a single moment of this story for you, but I want to tell you that it is based on a tiny fragment of a legend about water horses that has been with the author a long time. It is about an island called Thisby, which is in our world, but not, because this book is what we call "alternate history." Our world, but not. Our history, but not. It is about the Scorpio Races, which are run on the beach every year, when the capull uisce (CAPple ISHka) come out of the ocean and into the hands of men, who fight to control their speed and their danger for a brief time in order to be named victor at day's end.

If they survive the beach, that is. And many do not.

And it is about Puck Connolly (and her brothers and her dead parents) and Sean Kendrick (and his dead father) and their mutual desire for freedom and mutual love of horses, and how their stories slide into one another, quietly, seamlessly, beautifully. These two people, who have lost everything and yet still have everything left to lose, somehow find one another amidst the surf and the sorrow and the stunning, beautiful words, and their story - the separate parts and the together parts - weave together to make something that I cannot seem to put down for more than a few days at a time.

It is about horses, and not. It is about love, and not. It is about life and death and magic and folklore and family and debt and honor and OH MY GOODNESS THE SCENE WHERE SEAN BRINGS THE BREAD TO DINNER. And the last line, which has made me bow my head over the pages and sob twice.

This book. THIS BOOK. This book, if you (or your gift recipient, should you be looking for holiday recommendations) love Robin McKinley or Kristin Cashore or Leah Cypess or Patricia McKillip. This book, which I feel I may never stop reading. This book, which has become tied for my Printz pick (my other favorite will be in another post).

This book, which has curled itself around my heart and lives there still.

(This book, which you can enter to win a hardcover copy of, by going over to Kidliterate's Facebook page. For various reasons I need to up the numbers of fans the blog has on Facebook, so for the time being, contest entries will only be taken there.)

11/10/2011

First, a bit of business: Kidliterate now has a Facebook page, and I am giving away books every time we get a hundred new followers. When we got to 100, I gave away a complete set of Emily Jenkins' TOYS series in hardcover! So go here to like us on Facebook. Don't worry - we don't post often, so we won't be clogging up your feed!

So even though I still want more Creel (MORE!), I can't possibly stay mad at someone who writes these books I love so much. Because, my friends, she went and did it again - and not in a Britney type of way. This time, she's gone and created Princess Celie, and darned if I'm not head over heels again.

Celie lives in Castle Glower, where Tuesdays are amazing. Why, you ask? Because on Tuesdays, the castle gets bored and changes itself. It might rearrange some corridors, or add a new room or two, or stick an entire wing on one end, or pop on some new towers. That door you take to get where you go? Might not be there on Tuesday. It was certainly frustrating to some visitors, but "Celie truly loved Castle Glower. She never minded being late for lessons because the corridor outside her room had become twice as long, and she certainly didn't mind the new room in the south wing that had a bouncy floor. Even if you could only get to it by climbing through the fireplace of the Winter Dining Hall." And Celie felt like the Castle loved her, too. Whenever she urgently needed to be somewhere, she could usually get there quickly. When she was sick, the Castle filled her room with flowers. It left her snacks when she was hungry and led her to fun places when she needed something to do.

Not only does the Castle change itself when bored, it also changes itself to alter circumstances or to help a situation along. The current King, Celie's father, was chosen by the Castle. If the Castle furnished a visitor's room poorly, the guards knew to keep a close eye on them. It seemed like the Castle truly knew everyone and exactly what was going on, all the time.

So when Celie's parents and older brother disappear and she and her sister and younger brother are left alone with a Council that doesn't seem all that broken up about the vanished royals, it is to the Castle that the prince and princesses turn for help. But when the situation turns ever more dangerous and even the Castle seems unable to help, will Celie be able to save her family?

This is a GREAT read-aloud. It's also perfect for kids who love Gail Carson Levine or Jean Ferris or E.D. Baker. This is younger than Ms. George's other books, though fans of DRAGON SLIPPERS will find much to love here. I love feisty, whipsmart Celie and the motley band of allies she assembles under the watchful eyes of the Council scoundrels. I love how she learns and grows during the book but the learning and growing is all wrapped in rollicking adventure and secret passageways and spying and the most awesome Castle in kids' books. I love her relationship with her siblings, especially Rolf, the king's heir. I love how when you read this book, you can go from heart-pounding excitement to loud laughter on the same page.

AND it's the first book of three, so we've got two to go, and then you can all be mad with me at the end. At least until Jessica Day George pulls another awesome heroine out of her seemingly endless bag of tricks. **Correction - Ms. George tells me that she doesn't know how many books there will be about Castle Glower, and that it's not intended to be a trilogy. Sad face. Well, I love this one, and will be hopeful of more!**

10/20/2011

I searched Kidliterate to find all of the other times I've reviewed Laurel Snyder's work here, and was horrified to find...none. I mentioned her awesome ANY WHICH WALL in my PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING WAIT FOR HARRY POTTER post, but other than that, no love for Laurel.

What is the matter with me??

Laurel Snyder writes like the child of Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Edward Eager, with a generous side of Judy Blume. Her books exist in worlds both real and unreal, and she is at her best when she is dabbling in a little magical realism. When I was nine or so, I would have wanted to live inside her books. I would have written her a letter about how much I loved her and I wouldn't have cared if I ever heard back. If her books had been published when I was nine, I probably would have read them in Dell Yearling editions, because she's a Random House novelist. They would have had the little horse on the top of the cover and that distinctive frame around the cover picture. I would have dog-eared them and read them over and over and never, ever loaned them to friends, because I didn't have a lot of money for books and I never wanted to risk losing them.

But I didn't have Laurel when I was nine, because Wikipedia tells me that when I was nine, Laurel was seven. So instead we were reading the same books around the same time, and we were growing up on the same coast and eating the same TastyKakes. And I grew up to be someone who puts books in the hands of kids, and Laurel grew up to be someone who writes the stories that fill some of those books.

Laurel's books sneak up on you. I don't think I realized how much I loved UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS (the story of Lucy the milkmaid, best friend of the prince, who's told she's "unsuitable" and goes up the mountains to find her vanished mother and her future) until I found myself talking about it almost every day in the bookstore. "Have I given you UP AND DOWN THE SCRATCHY MOUNTAINS?" I would ask young girl after young girl. If the answer was "no!" I would become appalled with myself. I WAS DEPRIVING A GIRL OF LUCY. With each subsequent handsell I found myself talking about it more and more. (Did I sell it to YOU? If not, I am sorry. I was depriving you of Lucy.)

In the summer I found myself frequently turning to the absolutely delightful ANY WHICH WALL, which is such a charming homage to Edward Eager that I find myself smiling just typing about it. The premise is simple: four bored kids find a magical wall in the middle of a cornfield; the wall transports them to other times and places. So simple. It would be so easy for a book with a plot this basically simple to be...trite. Derivative. Dull. But in Laurel's hands it turns into a perfect summer book, one that begs to be read aloud from the backseat as Mom or Dad or Adult Of Your Choice drives you down a long, long highway to the home of a relative or to a far-off campsite. I like to sell AWW with GONE-AWAY LAKE or THE SATURDAYS (assuming the reader has already plowed through Mr. Eager's books), because nothing's better than a little pile of books filled with the magic of summer, and I love selling new books alongside classic stories so that the reader can make the connections between the past and the present of storytelling. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; either way, I find it delightful.

(I have to confess here that I have not actually read PENNY DREADFUL. I have been feeling guilty about this for about a year and a half. It is in my pile. I don't know what happened there.)

This month Laurel gave us BIGGER THAN A BREAD BOX. I needed this book when I was nine. I wish I could go back in time and give it to myself. When I was nine, I knew things were not good in my house. They never got any better. And there weren't really any books about kids like me, kids with a little brother whose parents weren't doing well; whose families were splitting apart. My friends didn't seem to be going through the same thing, either. It was a pretty lonely time, and books that helped...well, they were few and far between.

In BIGGER THAN A BREAD BOX, we meet 12 year old Rebecca. Rebecca's parents are going through a really bad patch, and her mom packs Rebecca and her brother Lew into the car and takes them from Baltimore to Atlanta to temporarily live with their grandmother. She gives Rebecca no warning about this, and suddenly, the whole world is different. But early in the trip Rebecca finds a mysterious bread box in the attic, and discovers that she can wish for anything she wants and as long as it fits in the bread box, it will appear. The wishing is amazing, but of course what Rebecca really wants can't fit in the box. She'll need to figure out other ways to cope with the changes in her world.

I wanted to hug this book, and I wanted it to hug nine-year-old me. And then I just became so, so glad that this book was in the world, and that kids who were like me back then have this kind of story to turn to. This book makes you feel like you're not alone in your suffering. I think it can help a kid make sense of their own broken world, and to see that families can break apart and still stay together in other ways. Family separation and divorce are things that are still hard to talk about, 28 years after my parents divorced. I think it's hard for kids to talk to their parents about things like this, and that makes books that deal with the subject even more important.

In the hands of another writer, this could have been a depressing, heavy-handed book. But Laurel comes along and sprinkles it with just enough magic and hope to keep it from being so, but not enough to make it sickly sweet or unrealistic. Rebecca feels so much like a real person to me, and because of that, I find making wishes and opening a bread box to find they've come true to be...believable. That's so hard. Magical realism is so hard to do right, but Laurel hits the right tone every time.

It's also so much harder to be a quiet writer than it is to be a loud one. I love the big, brassy, fantastical books that crowd the NYT bestseller list as much as the next girl, but the books that worm their way into my heart and stay there forever are always the quieter ones. The ones I know the author agonized over; the books that might have started as tiny seeds years ago and finally blossomed after long, long hours of work. The books that sneak up on me are the ones that stay with me the longest.